All items by Phoenix Handmade Books

Bind your own notebook at home kits

Bio

Hello everyone,

As far as I can recall, I've always been ever so slightly obsessed with books...no, not the reading type, but the empty ones...them dusty old journals, the marbled edged Victorian shop ledger, distressed small leather notebook and the prized sketch pads. Everyone around me knew it, resulting in dozens always on standby (I was the easiest to buy for, see?) A constant sketcher, I still carry a sharpened 2B pencil and book, happily losing myself drawing instead of finger tapping a smart phone. I realised I was just feeding a fetish, actually no, rather being controlled by it; a controlling, continual loop. So I broke away and started thinking of others...the ultimate selfish extension...MAKING!

I'm a bookmaker (I don't call myself a binder) and my sole income but I've kept very few of the thousands I've bound over the years (a handpainted large Hobbit travel journal being one of a handful of exceptions). Over recent years I've fallen for leather work, a new apprenticeship beckons I'm guessing? After spending substantially more than the much talked about "10,000 hours" on embossing (repoussé) soft metals, although never bored, I felt it time for a fresh challenge. I started at the basement level and repeated what I did 20 years ago when I picked up my first sheet of metal to shape into a book cover.

I've presented my work for sale since the beginning and in this world of the cheap and the mass produced I realised there is still a small place for the individual, the actual unique one of a kind piece. I relish personal commissions (the sign of a true commercial artist) bringing into being others' ideas and concepts. I carry no airs and graces and never am I over-precious about my work. I simply make books. Books to be used, books to be enjoyed, books to be filled with adventure, woes and excitement...or just a shopping list...there's a book for everyone.

Thanks for taking the time to read my drivel. I don't often write about myself (being self-employed for most of my life I've never even needed a CV!) instead I see myself as a quick sketch drawn on the top deck of a Number 36 bus from Peckham.

I hope you get the chance to come and say "hello" , but if you've any questions in the meantime please feel free to ask. (I'm a Capricorn, not keen on long walks on a beach or cats on the Internet, but I love Turkish Delight. Oh, and William Shatner once spent twenty minutes getting me to show him how to draw on copper...go figure! Captain Kirk likes to draw...)

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